Akinwumi Adesina is the president of the African Development Bank Group. A globally recognized international development expert, Adesina is also the 2019 Forbes Africa Person of the Year and the 2017 World Food Prize recipient.

Akio Hosono is the director of the JICA Research Institute, as well as a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. He served as the ambassador of Japan to El Salvador from 2002 to 2007. Hosono received his doctorate in economics from the University of Tokyo in 1984, and he has written extensively about South-South cooperation and economic development in Latin America.

A native of Iraq, Dr. Ala Alwan graduated in medicine from the University of Alexandria, Egypt, and has postgraduate qualifications from the United Kingdom. He has worked in clinical and academic medicine and public health and was minister of health in the government of Iraq from 2003 to 2005. Prior to his current role as regional director of the Eastern Mediterranean region of the World Health Organization, Dr. Alwan was assistant director-general for noncommunicable diseases and mental health at WHO.

Dr. Alaa Murabit is the founder of the Voice of Libyan Women, a women's empowerment and development organization which focuses on women, peace and security through both practical on-the-ground measures as well as legal and policy change. She is a member of the High-Level Advisory Group for the Global Study on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 — commissioned by the U.N. secretary-general for which U.N. Women is the secretaria

Alain Ebobissé is CEO of Africa50, the Pan-African infrastructure investment platform, with 34 shareholders, comprised of 31 African countries, the African Development Bank, the Central Bank of West African States, and Bank Al-Maghrib. Prior to joining Africa50, he served as global head for World Bank Group’s Global Infrastructure Project Development Fund, where he led development and investment in numerous infrastructure projects in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He also served as chief investment officer in the global infrastructure and natural resources department at International Finance Corporation.

Alain Labrique is the director of the Johns Hopkins Global mHealth Initiative. An infectious disease epidemiologist with a background in molecular biology, Labrique is a faculty member at the global disease epidemiology and control program of the Department of International Health, with a joint appointment at the Department of Epidemiology. He also served as the resident project scientist and country representative of the Johns Hopkins University for the JiVitA project, which focuses on maternal and child health research in Bangladesh.

Alan Davis is the director of the Citizen Action Network for Accountability, a project partially funded by the European Union to promote good governance, help to fight corruption and make public officials accountable for their actions in the Philippines. He is also Asia director at the Institute for War & Peace Reporting in London.

Alan Donnelly is the executive chairman of Sovereign Strategy, having founded the company in 2000. He was a Labour MEP from 1989-1999.

Alan Hudson is the policy director for transparency and accountability at ONE. He leads the organization’s efforts to empower people with the information they need to hold their governments to account, so that resources are used effectively to fight poverty and preventable diseases, rather than squandered and lost to corruption. Prior to joining ONE in 2011, Alan worked for the U.K.’s Department for International Development, the Overseas Development Institute, the U.K. Parliament and the University of Cambridge, where he also completed his Ph.D. on globalization and sovereignty.

Alan McClay was appointed CEO of Better Cotton in September 2015 and serves on the board of the International Cotton Association. Before that, he worked as a consultant advising firms and trade bodies on not-for-profit strategy and management and on sustainable sourcing policies and standards. He was previously CEO of CIES – the Food Business Forum, an international platform for food retail businesses which has since merged with brand associations to become the Consumer Goods Forum.